in poetry, a song, or a composition proper to be sung.

Among the ancients, odes signified no more than songs; but with us they are very different things. The ancient odes were generally composed in honour of their gods, as many of those of Pindar and Horace.

These had originally but one stanza, or strophe; but afterwards they were divided into three parts, the strophe, the antistrope, and the epode. The priests going round the altar singing the praises of the gods, called the first entrance, when they turned to the left, the strophe; the second, turning to the right, they called antistrope, or returning; and, lastly, standing before the altar, they sung the remainder, which they called the epode.

Heroes and triumphs were also subjects for the ode; and in course of time love and entertainments were likewise thought very suitable to it. Here Anacreon and Sappho excelled, and Horace has loft us some of both sorts wrote with peculiar sweetness and elegance. Among the moderns, Dryden's ode on St Cecilia's day, and Pope's on the same subject, are justly allowed to exceed every thing of the kind, either in this, or in any of the modern languages.